Fields v. State

Decision Date26 March 2013
Docket NumberNo. 38571.,38571.
Citation298 P.3d 241,154 Idaho 347
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
Parties Zane Jack FIELDS, Petitioner–Appellant, v. STATE of Idaho, Respondent.

Federal Defender Services of Idaho, Boise, for appellant.

Hon. Lawrence G. Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for respondent.

BURDICK, Chief Justice.

This case arises from an Ada County district court's dismissal of Zane Jack Fields's (Fields) petition for post-conviction relief filed on October 22, 2010. The petition was the fifth successive petition for post-conviction relief filed by Fields and alleged that the act of destroying an orange camouflage coat is new evidence that establishes his innocence. The State moved for dismissal on the grounds that the claim is barred by I.C. § 19–2719, the statute governing post-conviction procedure for capital cases. The district court granted the State's motion to dismiss on the grounds that the newly discovered evidence claim is barred by I.C. § 19–2719(5)(b) and that there is no genuine issue of material fact on Fields's claims that the destruction of the coat was relevant at trial or that it proved his innocence. We affirm the decision of the district court on the grounds that the petition was untimely filed.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Zane Fields is currently incarcerated for the first degree murder of Mary Katherine Vanderford. State v. Fields, 127 Idaho 904, 908 P.2d 1211 (1995) ("Fields I "). On February 11, 1988, Fields stabbed 69–year–old Ms. Vanderford to death while stealing about $50 from the Wishing Well Gift Shop, the store in which she was working. Id. at 907, 908 P.2d at 1214. Ms. Vanderford was alone in the store at the time, and there were no eye witnesses to the murder. She bled to death due to a stab wound in her neck. Id. At trial, Fields's orange camouflage coat was introduced into evidence as Defense Exhibit 22 and was used by eyewitnesses to identify Fields. A jury found Fields guilty of felony murder, and the trial court sentenced him to death. Id. at 908–09, 908 P.2d at 1215–16. After he was sentenced, Fields filed an application for post-conviction relief on April 18, 1991, which the district court denied following an evidentiary hearing. Id. at 909, 908 P.2d at 1216. Fields appealed to this Court, and we upheld the conviction, sentence, and denial of his application for post-conviction relief. Id. at 907, 908 P.2d at 1225.

Fields filed a second application for post-conviction relief on July 13, 1992. Fields v. State, 135 Idaho 286, 17 P.3d 230 (2000) ("Fields II "). After giving notice of the intent to do so, the district court summarily dismissed the application without an evidentiary hearing. Id. at 287, 17 P.3d at 231. Fields appealed, and this Court upheld the dismissal. Id. at 292, 17 P.3d at 236.

Fields filed a third application for post-conviction relief on June 27, 2002, under the amended Uniform Post–Conviction Procedure Act, I.C. §§ 19–4901 through 19–4911. Fields v. State, 151 Idaho 18, 20, 253 P.3d 692, 694 (2011) ("Fields IV "). Fields sought to have nineteen latent fingerprints from the murder scene compared with the Automated Fingerprint Identification System national fingerprint database and to have DNA testing of substances on his coat that had tested positive as some type of blood, of hairs found on the victim's clothing, and of scrapings taken from her fingernails. Id.

The district court ordered that the Idaho State Police Forensic Lab DNA test the coat, but the lab found that DNA testing could not be conducted because there was insufficient genetic material. Id. The comparison of the fingerprints produced matches to two individuals, but there was no evidence linking them to the murder. Id. at 21, 253 P.3d at 695. The DNA testing determined that the hairs found on the victim's clothing did not come from Fields. Id. There was also male DNA found in the scrapings from the victim's fingernails, but it also did not come from Fields. Id. There was no evidence that the hairs or the material scraped from the victim's fingernails came from her attacker. Id.

The State moved to dismiss Fields's petition on the ground that neither the fingerprint nor the DNA test results entitled Fields to relief. Id. In response, Fields filed affidavits of Jeffrey Acheson, Betty Heaton, and Mari Munk, all of whom had testified during his trial. Heaton and Munk had been in the gift shop and had left shortly before the murder. Id.

They both testified to seeing a man in the store before they left, but at trial they did not identify Fields as being that man. Rather, they gave general descriptions of the man and his clothing, and those descriptions did not match Fields. In their affidavits, they basically recount their trial testimony and state that Fields did not look like the man they saw.

Id. The district court denied Fields's application for post-conviction relief, and Fields appealed. Id. This Court affirmed the district court and held that the DNA test results did not establish that Fields did not commit the offense, and that the witness affidavits were cumulative. Id. at 24–25, 253 P.3d at 698–99.

Fields filed a fourth application for post-conviction relief seeking a retroactive application of the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002). The district court dismissed that application, and we upheld the dismissal on appeal. Fields v. State, 149 Idaho 399, 234 P.3d 723 (2010) ("Fields III ").

This appeal involves Fields's fifth application for post-conviction relief filed on October 12, 2010. The petition followed an acknowledgment by the State in August 2010 that defense exhibit 22, the camouflage coat owned by Fields, was destroyed in July 2004 contrary to a court order to preserve it. In the petition, Fields alleged that the destruction of the coat at Detective Smith's direction was new evidence that helped establish his innocence, and that the intentional destruction of the coat violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. On October 22, 2010, the State filed a motion to dismiss the petition on the grounds that the destruction of the coat is not new evidence and that facts about the destruction of the coat are nothing but impeaching and cumulative.

After further argument and briefing, the district court issued a Memorandum Decision and Order of Dismissal of Petition for Post–Conviction Relief on February 18, 2011. In its decision, the district court held that the newly discovered evidence claim is barred by I.C. § 19–2719(5)(b) and that there is no genuine issue of material fact on the destruction of evidence claim. Fields timely appealed that decision to this Court.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

"Whether a successive petition for post-conviction relief was properly dismissed pursuant to I.C. § 19–2719 is a question of law. This Court reviews questions of law de novo." Pizzuto v. State, 134 Idaho 793, 795, 10 P.3d 742, 744 (2000) (internal citations omitted).

III. ANALYSIS

In a threshold issue, the State argues that Fields's petition for post-conviction relief was untimely filed. Specifically, the State points to numerous opportunities for Fields to discover the coat's destruction in the six years that elapsed between the destruction and this petition. In response, Fields argues that counsel for Fields discovered the destruction of the coat on August 31, 2010, and filed this petition within 42 days of that date on October 12, 2010. Going further, Fields argues that the district court correctly found that Fields's failure to learn of the coat's destruction earlier was reasonable given the State's concessions that rendered DNA testing of the coat unnecessary. We find that Fields's successive petition for post-conviction relief was untimely filed in violation of I.C. § 19–2719, as he should have known of the coat's destruction more than 42 days before filing the petition.

In its decision, the district court held that, drawing inferences in favor of Fields as the non-moving party, Fields could not have reasonably known earlier about the destruction of the coat. The district court reasoned:

The petition for Post–Conviction Scientific Testing was filed on June 27, 2002. Because Detective Smith did not order the destruction of the coat until February 17, 2004, the destruction of the coat was not a fact that could have been known at the time the case was brought. However, Detective Smith ordered the destruction of the coat in February 2004, and this successive petition was not filed until October 2010, approximately six and one-half years later. At the time that Detective Smith gave his quick email response to destroy the coat, the Petitioner had pending a Motion for Independent Testing of the coat. However, that motion was never noticed for hearing nor was it otherwise pursued. The Petitioner explains that he abandoned the motion because the facts he hoped to show through testing had been conceded by the State. The Petitioner claims he learned of the destruction of the coat on or about August 31, 2010, approximately two weeks after the State's investigation into the whereabouts of the coat was completed.

In its brief on appeal, the State argues that the district court incorrectly determined the petition to be timely and applied the wrong standard.

The timeliness of a petition for post-conviction relief in a capital case is governed by the provisions of I.C. § 19–2719. "Within forty-two (42) days of the filing of the judgment imposing the punishment of death, and before the death warrant is filed, the defendant must file any legal or factual challenge to the sentence or conviction that is known or reasonably should be known."

I.C. §...

To continue reading

Request your trial
5 cases
  • Dunlap v. State
    • United States
    • Idaho Supreme Court
    • November 2, 2015
    ...dismissed pursuant to I.C. § 19–2719 is a question of law. This Court reviews questions of law de novo." Fields v. State, 154 Idaho 347, 349, 298 P.3d 241, 243 (2013) (Fields V ) (quoting Pizzuto v. State, 134 Idaho 793, 795, 10 P.3d 742, 744 (2000) (Pizzuto III )). When reviewing a dismiss......
  • Abdullah v. State
    • United States
    • Idaho Supreme Court
    • December 5, 2023
    ...in it "were not known or could not reasonably have been known ." I.C. § 19-2719(5)(a) (emphasis added); see Fields v. State , 154 Idaho 347, 350, 298 P.3d 241, 244 (2013) ; Pizzuto , 149 Idaho at 160, 233 P.3d at 91. In addition, a successive petition must contain a "precise statement" of t......
  • Fields v. State
    • United States
    • Idaho Supreme Court
    • November 27, 2013
    ...time, and there were no eyewitnesses to the murder. She bled to death due to a stab wound in her neck. See Fields v. State, 154 Idaho 347, 348, 298 P.3d 241, 242 (2013) (Fields V ).At Fields's preliminary hearing, an inmate Harold Gilcrist testified that Fields confessed to the crime and ma......
  • Creech v. State
    • United States
    • Idaho Supreme Court
    • February 9, 2024
    ...This Court reviews questions of law de novo." Dunlap v. State, 159 Idaho 280, 360 P.3d 289, 301 (2015) (quoting Fields v. State, 154 Idaho 347, 349, 298 P.3d 241, 243 (2013)). "A court must summarily dismiss any successive petition that does not meet the requirements of [Idaho Code section]......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT